Okay so today is my first official writing day but I’m really just revising, a bit of a warm-up lets say. These are re-workings I’m sending off into the world, hopefully they’ll appear somewhere later this year, I’ll keep you posted. Comments welcomed!
Bang-bang
The bang-bang of the screen door
is the only indication she was here.
I never see her –
only her ripples,
which blur at my edges.
This is not what I had in mind.
Undercut, undercurrent
again and again and still
it’s a surprise.
I take trace notes
in a small spiral notebook:
Lipstick on a tissue;
A perfumed scarf –
yes I know you’ve heard it all before.
I try listening to her speak on an old cassette.
The tape stretches
her voice.
What am I supposed to do?
I can’t shut the notebook.
Black Water
When you visit her
dark and brackish
she runs over banks of Ophelia hair.
Grass moves lightly,
quietly, under rusty water
– even though the noise of her running
fills your ears, rushing
like wind through Macrocarpas, darker.
You unlatch the gate
and cross the paddock.
Here you must watch out
for the goose that nips, attacks hissing.
Watching
for now from the darkness
of a silo shadow beyond the gorse.
The rising water fills your ears
pulls down.
Spilt
The touch of your hand on my breast
brings
little needles and I let down
first just a drop, another
drop and then
when I’m sitting on you,
over you
it’s a steady flow
and the milk is
everywhere.
I guess its not really a waste because
there is always more but I resent you a little
because its not yours and you think its funny and I guess it is and I just need to let go.
You check to see if I have teeth down there and
if you can pass to the other side.
You do think I’m a goddess and
the children tear us apart, me to earth, you
up in the air or is it the other way around? And
our fingertips can’t quite touch and I cry down on you
or do you cry down on me?
The children walk all over me or
is it you?
Valley, hills, rivers and caves.
Chimera
Born today.
You’re the ‘it’ girl or guy today.
Everyone seems to think you have
the answers – because you do.
If only you could cover more ground
by cloning yourself. Saying ‘no’
is just as effective.
‘Hear that girl?’
She latches well and feeds enough
for two.
‘We will call you Abeni
much-prayed-for girl.’
Four rounds of treatment and finally
you bump into your sister
in the lab, fusing, growing
never alone.
In your dreams
she is outside you
holding your hand
apart.
Everyone on the street is you.
You count yourself
until you wake.
Show Your Workings 